Let me make amends to you all by showing you the new US dust jackets for the re-badged MBT. (That's right; re-badged. If you have not caught it in previous posts, the US/Can series of Monster Blood Tattoo will now be dubbed The Foundlings Tale, with the titles of each individual volume to stay the same)
So, on with the show...
Ta da!The images in the covers are very vertical, I know, that's how Jamie (the illustrator) likes it. Though these are not exactly how I conceive the Half-Continent, as an illustrator myself I like to have a little latitude to create and conjure and so, whilst the pedantic author in me wanted to fuss about accuracy, the empathetic illustrator in me was more than happy to grant scope to a fellow fabulist.
I hope they meet with your approval... If not, that's cool, too.
51 comments:
Lamplighter really draws me in. They are all lovely paintings, though I miss seeing your character art.
I think the new covers are gorgeous and enticing! I agree that they don't have quite the same book-accurate feel as your own illustrations (understandably so) but if the rebranding and repackaging draws in new readers to the series who were formerly put off by the "Monster Blood Tattoo" moniker, then huzzah for them and you!
Looking forward eagerly to FACTOTUM.
I agree with R.J. Anderson. I enjoy seeing your art on the cover. Can't wait for FACTOTUM.
Welcome back.
I don't mind "The Foundlings Tale" as an alternative title to MBT.
Interesting covers, but not at all how i imagine the half-continent. Different strokes, as you say. And pretty schmick illustrations nonetheless.
But what I'm really intrigued about is the cover of Factotum! Where is that? Sinster? Capital of Tasswegia? Is this your way of offering us a small whiff of factotum's storyline?
October can't come soon enough.
I'm missing the character art too but I'll live... Amazon already let me preorder Factotem so it'll arrive and I can escape into reading immediately!
sigh. I suppose they will have to do...
no, they are nice. I like them. they are completely different from yours and as such do not fit the scope of the thing quite as well, but even so they are not horrible. :)
it's the WORDS that are important, anyway.
I don't like that they changed the title of the series, but I love the covers...They really show what setting each story will be in. Of course, I'm just guessing on Factotum...September is so long in coming. :(
I like the covers as much as the old ones. All I ask for is the character sketches to be included and drawn by our fabulous Mr. Cornish. Any word when revamped books 1 and 2 will be released here in the US? I'm itching to buy them while I'm waiting for Factotum to come out, unless they all come out at the same time. Then I'll have to find another way to pass the time.
They are very nice, and I'm happy for you. Of course, I would love to see what you would have come up with instead.
Mostly, I'm dying to read the 3rd book.
I'm with most of y'all. I do like the artwork but I miss the originals. And the new stuff is so....Victorian. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Victorianism, but they don't give quite the right feel.
Sensational. Much as I love the original series title, I do think The Foundling's Tale will be more accessible. I love the use of space on the covers, and the font matches the feel of the illustration. The lamplighter picture reminds me of Mont Saint Michel.
Nice.
-Ed.
Lovely covers. As long as we still get to see your character art on the inside, I'm delighted with the new packaging.
No! The Factotum cover is out, but my stupid dial-up has melted the pixels together like chalk in the rain! I can make out a rather London-esque city.
Would you do us all a huge favor and compose a Factotum cover in the style of the first two? I'm curious what you would have drawn.
-Ben
Well, they're nice-looking covers! I still like the original series title, though...
Wow the new covers look really good! I still prefer the ones that i have with the silhouettes, mainly because they have been read by my class so much that they have the look of worn, sun yellowed paged old books; and they leave just about everything up to my imagination. The only thing i don't like about the new covers is that they make the Half-Continent look like it is very mechanical driven and with no threat of monsters at all. That might just be me though. Has a release date been announced for Factotum yet Mr Cornish? because i visit fairly regularly and i have not seen one.
Well, nice covers but too mainstream. Put Paolini or Tolkien on the cover, it would work for those books aswell. You pictures were showing some of the mystery of the world that you created. It was the cover of Foundling that made me take the book from the shelf and read the text on the back.
Valid point Anna, but the marketing folks may know what they're doing by going mainstream. MBT has already been out for a while in the US, but hasn't taken off sales-wise in spite of the amazing story between the covers. The new covers may be the spark that's needed; and, mainstream or not, they're beautiful.
I had a number of questions for Master Cornish. I realized, though, that the response to many of them would be "read the third book when it comes out" - which, of course, I intend to do. So, I'll ask only the one question that seems safely distant from any plot spoilers. I've noticed that folks in MBT seem to be predominately single and that, even if they have kids (e.g. Lady Vey) they aren't necessarily married. Is marriage not a common custom in the Half Continent?
I just have one thing to say Mr. Cornish YOU ROCK!!! Along with that I would like to also say you are up with the writers J.J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and that is thanks to your imagination, your drawings, and all your other talents you have to make the world of the Half Continent.
I have just finished Foundling and Lamplighter. I am reading Lamplighter again and have not read something twice since reading The Lord of the Rings. I agree with everyone about the front page illustrations and it is a near disappointment, but I hope that you,Mr. Cornish, will continue to draw pictures for the inside of the book.
I have a few questions, if the above typing was not to much.
First, did all these ideas just come to you or was over a long period time?
Second, what is going to happen to Rossamund and Threnody will they meet again?
Lastly, is there a greater danger to Rossamund from an ancient monster or from humans?
Thank you for listening and giving the next generation another great book series and God bless.
Alyosha, can it not be a problem aswell if all bookcovers look the same? At least for me, I need something in the bookcover´s picture, that makes me pick it up and decide if it´s readable or not. What makes a customer pick out MR Cornish book, if other books that has almost the same cover lies next to it? Think it´s always a good and a bad side to it.
I agree with Anna - in my case, the amazing silhouette design of Foundling was the impetus for me to pick it up. The illustrations inside were also good, and the brief blurb helped. In that order.
I can and do judge a book (at least partly) by it's cover, at least in a bookshop where there's so many books screaming for my attention. Anyone who doesn't has book-judging-senses I just don't.
Anna, "me," and others who agree with them are, of course, correct. By default, all of us who have read the books so far were motivated to pick them up for the first time by Master Cornish's original covers. All I'm saying is that, whatever the current fans may think, regarding the larger potential audience out there, the marketing folks may well know what they're doing.
I also think they, the PR-people, could be more aggressive to put the word out about books, in the newspaper, TV-shows, libraries, bookfair´s etc. There are so many books that comes out. Here in my country, I haven´t seen much PR about Mr Cornish book (Sorry Mr Cornish). I´m trying to do my bit in the area where i live, recommend it to libraries, friends and have even written to Gothenburg Book Fair, to get them to invite Mr Cornish (it´s a pretty big fair).
You make a good point Alyosha, and I'm certainly not disagreeing with you. It's just that while they are amazing illustrations, I'm so attached to the distinctive, pen & ink covers we have in Australia that I would find it hard to imagine myself in the same situation back in 2005-ish picking up one based on these US covers. I just hope that the covers do indeed capture the imagination of the US market they're intended for.
Personally, while I can appreciate them as beautiful, detailed illustrations, those US covers wouldn't be enough for me to pick one up and think "interesting...wonder what the blurb has to say" (which probably says more about the way I shop for books than anything else).
These give a completely different feel, but I like them very much. They're atmospheric and elegant. Nonetheless, I do love the original covers as well.
I wish they would've left the rebranding until after Factotum was published but oh well. I agree with most of the posters that the artwork is very good but I also didn't imagine the HC looking quite so "tall". I suppose the same thing happens(ed) when revealing a protagonists face. - RBlunt
I think they look great but I'm still partial to a Creature
Cover, but I really like the Factotum cover.
I got to say, that I really like your covers better! Your cover art is what drew me into reading your fantastic series to begin with. Sorry to see your not doing the cover art, I hope to see that your still including your own illustrations in the the book itself.
Covers are nice, but I really like your origional ones much better!
Any thoughts on the miniature gaming idea as your series makes for great skirmish war gaming?
I love these covers,they are lovely paintings and really capture the vastness and complexity of the half-continent, which is what sets the hc apart for me from other imagined worlds. The downside is that they distance the viewer from the story and the characters themselves.
I'm going to agree with what I think is the general consensus here, that the new covers are nice but I greatly prefer the originals. It was the illustration of Europe that made me pick up Foundling in the first place (I love reading about strong women) so I'm a little sad to see the new covers change focus. That said, they are quite beautiful!
Also, Mr. Cornish, I thought you should know that my Art History final is to curate your own virtual gallery, and mine is monster-themed! If you don't mind, I'd love to include a few of your illustrations. It will only be shown as a Powerpoint to my classmates, not for monetary purposes :)
Beautiful covers, but the scale is too over-the-top for my liking.
And the atmosphere feels wrong. It doesn't look like a world in which monsters play a significant part, does it? It looks too clean and powerful, like the humans are confidently in control.
-Markus
Wow...those are some amazing covers! I like both your covers and these :)
I like these covers, but I love Mr. Cornish's. These do not fit the tone/style/whatever of the books at all. I also wish that they'd wait awhile to change the name and covers. I like to collect all books in a series with the same style (and in this case, series title).
Well, I'm a little sad to see the old covers and title gone. I can absolutely understand how this might be more useful for marketing in a "mainstream" audience, but it was that wicked-cool monster on the cover of book one and that gruesome name (in a good way) "Monster Blood Tattoo" that drew me in the first place! But it's the writing and the characters that keep me around--and your obsessive attention to your mythology. It's been a HUGE inspiration to me as a writer in my own series. Looking forward to Book Three--and hope to still see your interior art and MASSIVE explicarium.
I might not be crazy about it, but I understand the re-badging. That said, I think that the new covers are gorgeous, but I will still miss the original art. I have the first two books in the old style and am a little sad that I won't have a matching set. Are the non-US/Can versions going to remain in the original then? Might have to track a copy if that is the case...
Man... those new covers are pretty cool. Scratch that. They are downright awesome. I love them. I'm a little disappointed with the name change, but it is what it is. I can't wait until I get to read Factotum. I'm sure it would be fantastic.
I am partial to the origial artwork (good thing I already own copies of the first two), however, though I agree with it looking a bit taller than I imagined, having a landscape view (which I can then alter in my head if I wish to) is rather benificial to me. With Mr. Cornish's work, I could well picture the characters, but for some of the landscaping I was at a loss. I'll use the artwork as a loose guide - I believe it shall suffice. I think it beautiful, but not quite as, shall we say, connected to the story as Cornish's own. I look foreword to more of that in Factotem - and, naturally, to the book itself!
Personally I don't like these covers as much as I do the monster covers. It seems a tad too... fantasy-like. I'd always felt that the HC was a lot grittier and darker. I don't know, that's just me.
I don't mean to be a stick in the mud, but I think I prefer my gold embossed DM illustrated hard-covered copies.
The paintings are Good, even Great, but they make me think of something entirely different than HC. Maybe where Everymen originated from, but that's just a thought...
my first reaction was, and I have witnesses, "LAAAAAAAME. UBER LAME."
but they are very pretty. just...they don't feel right. They don't really fit the books in my opinion.
I think the covers would be great for something else, just not for this. I am sad that I won't end up with a matching set.
Now I'll have to travel to Oz to get the book sooner, with the titles and covers I liked!
Argh! I have to say this is frustrating news.
Heck I probably never would have noticed the books at all if it wasn't for your artwork. I was walking through an independent bookstore in Solvang, CA USA and a hard cover copy of Book Two was propped up on top of a long bookshelf. You're character art on the cover caught my eye from across the room and I with a quick flip through the book I bought it right away, even though I hadn't gone in intending to buy anything. When I got home the next day I realized it was the second of a set, and so I went to another book seller during my lunch break at work and bought Book One so I could start reading them.
I'm an aspiring illustrator/writer myself and and the work you've done on this series is superb and inspiring. It's a shame that it doesn't get to grace the cover of Book Three.
I find these a bit generic, and as other comments have noted, it was your artwork on the covers that drew me into the series. Also, as someone who is a completist, I'm bummed that my copy of the third book won't match the first two!
I am going to have to pay and order the OZ\NZ copy of the books to match my hardbacks of the other two.
It will be worth it, since the original art style is WHY i picked it up in the book store many manys ago.
If it draws people in, I can understand the choice to change to a more glossy, mainstream pulpy look.
I think the covers look absolutly fantastic. they...sort of remind me of scott lynch's gentalmen bastard series.
oh by the way, im not the one to suggest ideas to authors but could you, by chance, write a darker, more adult tale set in the half-continent [maybe just another short story, if you like].
Absolutely love the new covers. I think they'll definetly draw in more readers. Upset though on not having a "set" with Monster Blood Tattoo. I'll have to buy Foundling and Lamplighter again when Factotum comes out. But I'm more than happy to.
Ugh. November seems so far away. I can't imagine wishing the summer would go faster.
I favored the beautiful colorful US covers with Europa and Rossamund and another portrait on the front cover and and for "Lamplighter" the cover with Europa and Rossamund with an antlered monster in the background. They are absolutely beautiful. I am disaapointed that the US editions are not following suite with the first two editions, but it won't keep me from purchasing volume 3. No cover would keep me from purchasing the 3rd volume. But I thoroughly enjoy the artwork of D.M. Cornish and wonder why in the world the US publishers have gone the route they have chosen. The new covers are beautiful. I don't want to detract from the talent of the artist, but for the series, give me D.M. Cornish!!!
all i want to know is-will there be any way i can get Factotum in a form that matches the originals (with Mr. cornish's artwork on it)? because that was the reason (like so many other avid fans) that i got into the series at first. It was unique, and that's what i wanted..it might, by the way, be worth your while to publish it in two formats-perhaps a special edition for us extremists her in the good old US of A
The new covers are really quite lovely, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tremendously disappointed. I for one loved the original covers with the gorgeous character illustrations by D.M. Cornish. Don't get me wrong, the new illustrations are nice too, but I liked the feel of the originals much better. I am sad that now the third volume will not match the other two :( I'm in agreement with the BrandenRose, publishing the third volume in a special edition to match the original first two volumes would make me extremely happy.
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